Elizabeth Cotten-Freight train & other North Carolina folk songs & tunes (1958)

Elizabeth Cotten was born in January of 1895 in Chapel Hill, NC, where her father worked in the mines and her mother was a maid servant and laundress. She began playing guitar at the age of eight, secretly practicing on her older brother's instrument. At the age of 12, she began to work with her mother in helping the family to scrape by, though she continued to play music with her family, in particular her siblings. Sometime around 1912 she was married and joined the church, which occasioned her to give up playing music for the next 25 years. Through a series of strange accidents, she once found the daughter of Peggy and Pete Seeger in a department store and came to work for them, which led to her re-involvement with music. She played frequently during the '60s and '70s, often with Mike Seeger; the recordings collected here were made during 1957 and 1958 at her home in Washington. Cotten has a very distinctive picking style and a beautifully fragile and off-key voice; both make these recordings a pleasure. Included are a mix of originals and personal versions. Of note are "Vastopol," which sounds nothing like the John Fahey version, and "Sweet Bye and Bye," of which this version might be specific to North Carolina. Also enjoyable is "Honey Babe Your Papa Cares for You," whose melodically vague style is characteristic of Cotten's ear and unique way of suppressing melody. If this album intrigues you, you might want to check out her live album on Arhoolie, which some believe to be even better, allmusicguide.

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Requests-Older posts (Links to other sites)

Odetta-1965-Sings Dylan from Lost-in-Tyme blog

http://rapidshare.com/files/5195019/Odetta_-__1965__odetta_sings_dylan.rar

David Blue-1966-David Blue from Lost-in-Tyme blog

http://rapidshare.com/files/7903750/David_Blue_-_1966_-_David_Blue.rar

Mary Anne Paterson-Me (1970) from Lost-In-Tyme blog

http://rapidshare.com/files/5185809/mannme.rar

Synanthesia (1969-Acid Folk/Rock)

Though recorded quickly over two days — and indeed, literally recorded live in the studio with no overdubs — Synanthesia's sole album from 1969 is a gentle treat for anyone interested in the obscurer realms of late-'60s U.K. folk and its descendants. It's always a pleasure to hear something that did not deservedly go out of print — and therefore get an unnecessary reputation. Instead, the combination of bandleader Dennis Homes' gentle vocals and delicate guitar work, Leslie Cook's equally strong talents, and the ace-in-the-hole performing of sax and flute player Jim Fraser is often quite magical. That the band openly has a debt to the Incredible String Band and Bert Jansch practically goes without saying, but there's a difference between mere aping and finding a particular spin on a sound, and Synanthesia firmly comes down on the side of the latter. For such a rushed and in-the-moment album, the sound is often quite rich — credit not only to Vic Gamm's inspired engineering, but to the band's clear abilities as a solid live act. Hearing Homes' gentle vibes work on "Peek Strangely and Worried Evening" or Cook's flourishes on mandolin for "Fates" shows how well each complements the other songwriter's work. Yet Fraser in many ways is the key throughout — clearly picking up on jazz influences as much as folk ones, much like his bandmates, and the result is a detailed, fluid series of performances on his chosen instruments, ranging from the restrained then strutting sax parts on "Morpheus" to gentle background flute on "Rolling and Tumbling." The band's weakest element might be the lyrics, but nothing is outright bad, just sometimes awkward. Sunbeam's 2006 re-release, in keeping with the label's similar work, features not only excellent sound but winning, retrospective liner notes from Homes and a slew of rare pictures, plus a bonus track, "Shifting Sands," that originally appeared on an obscure compilation album from 1970, from allmusicguide.

Strongly Recommended…check “Vesta” and "Mnemoysne" feelings…

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Sedmina-II Dejanje (1982-Acid Folk)

The second album of SEDMINA was released in 1982. The band featured the same line-up like on the debut. However, the arrangements are somewhat different, offering longer tracks and more psychedelic, acid-folk sound. Unlike the debut, this one does not attract a listener on the first attempt, but several listens are needed to grasp the feeling. The performance is done with mastery and confidence. The leading instruments are clarinet, violin (and viola, probably because I cannot quite tell the difference) and saxophone, with backing acoustic guitars. Melody lines invoke the medieval or baroque ballads of typical European and Mediterranean musical legacy, but occasional hints of even American folk tunes are also present. "Ciganka" ("Gypsy Woman") is very dylanesque lively folky tune with violin. The epic "Circus" brings an extended violin solo with some eerie, melancholic passages turning more optimistic at the end of the song, with Veno's vocals and saxophone. "Pav" shows the incredible abilities of Lado Jaksa playing outstanding clarinet solo party. Closing "Kolo" brings a drunken, quite morbid and strange tonality, sounding like they had been tuning their instruments along the way - very trippy and mind-bending. The second half of the song is more optimistic because the rhythm is stronger and violin is accompanied very nice solo on acoustic guitar. "II dejanje" is a very dark album. It is also not very accessible and requires attention and patience. At times, it contains rather noisy and cacophonic moments which may force you to stop playing. It is demanding. But we are talking here about "progressive" and "experimental" music, aren't we? This album deserves a lot of guts from listeners. And from reviewers it also deserves something - a recommendation. It is simply not an average folksy troubadour "cry baby", from progarchives.com.

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Stone Harbour-Emerges (1974-Acid Folk/ Progressive)

Check this weird album..Psychedelia, acid folk and some progressive chords..
Early Byrds like album, everyone that dont know this should try it and tell me..
Nice guitar solos, though the music quality is not the best!
Just two guys stoned to the bone playing psych in a basement, private press..

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Accolade-Accolade (1970)

Notable, more than anything, for the inclusion of busker Don Partridge (a successful solo artist with several hit singles) and singer Gordon Giltrap (who remained for only one album), Accolade were a light acoustic band who completely eschewed electric instruments, even as they developed a kind of folk/jazz fusion. They recorded two albums and one single before going their separate ways, by allmusicguide.

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Re-posts (2)

Songs of Freedom-Theodorakis, Farantouri, Williams (1971)

http://download.yousendit.com/956E8EA811765CC6

Shelagh McDonald-Stargazer (1971)

This record could well represent the closest anyone has ever come to crossing circa-1970 Joni Mitchell with circa-1970 Sandy Denny. As a composer, McDonald leans toward the Mitchell half of that equation, with a similarly angular melodic sense, and a phrasing that often shifts register quickly and substantially. It would be mighty surprising if she didn't ingest songs like Mitchell's "Marcie" thoroughly before coming up with narratives in the same style like "Liz's Song." The parallels come out most in the songs in which McDonald emphasizes her piano rather than her guitar. As a singer, her tonal quality is more similar to Denny's. The result is a double-edged sword. The album can be unequivocally recommended to fans of Mitchell and Denny who have run out of things to buy by those two singers, and want something that's for the most part undiscovered, but with a similar vibe. At the same time, McDonald inevitably comes up short in the unavoidable comparisons with those role models, as she puts far less of her own personality into her work than either Mitchell or Denny did. Dogmatic criticism aside, it's a pleasant album with subdued folk-rock arrangements, and the piano ballad "Lonely King" is haunting enough to make one forget the obvious likenesses to Mitchell's own piano outings for the moment. Occasionally, there are effective slight departures from the standard production of folk-rock albums from the period, as with the sad strings and operatic backup vocals on the title track, and the extremely Garth Hudson-esque organ of "Good Times." The CD reissue adds five bonus tracks from other 1971 sessions, three of which were previously unreleased, and two of which only appeared on compilation LPs in the early 1970s. Unfortunately, the liner notes do not make it clear which two of the other twelve songs were the ones used on compilations, rather than on the Stargazer LP itself, allmusic guide.

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Re-posts

Judy Henske & Jerry Yester - Farewell Aldebaran (1969)

Iraklis-Se allous kosmous (1976-Progressive Folk)

Iraklis Triantafyllidis comes to discography for the first time in 72 with his group Iraklis+DNA and the single «Same Dreans/John» with progressive folk rock style, one of the best singles recorded that time in Greece. In 1976 with his new group Iraklis & Lernea Ydra and with the help in production from Terens Quick! the double LP «Σε άλλους κόσμους (In other worlds) is a fact. He is using the same progressive folk-rock style and this one in my opinion is one of the best progressive folk albums in Greece, maybe worldwide also.

Strongly Recommended!!!

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